The rules of tipping can sometimes seem a bit fuzzy. But, in order to be courteous, we should all learn the ins and outs of tipping etiquette. When planning your next vacation spot, restaurants and services are probably part of the experience. So, I researched how much you should tip when you travel.
How much do you tip when traveling? Traveling often involves participating in various services, so tipping rules vary on where you are. It is important to do research on your destination before you go to become accustomed to the culture and what is expected beforehand.
Whether it’s food services, nail services, a boating tour, taxis, salons, or something similar, tipping matters. Really, any service can be a service that you tip for. Planning your vacation budget is essential to a successful trip. Finding out the answer to this question will help you get ready accordingly.
How Much Do You Tip When Traveling?
Trying new food and restaurants is one of the most pleasurable parts of traveling and one of the most common tipping scenarios. If you are sitting down to a meal at restaurant with wait staff, tipping will be expected.
General Tipping Rules To Follow:
- Restaurants (15-20 percent)
- Travel services (10 percent)
- National parks (5 to 10 dollars)
- Other optional free services
The customary tip is 15 to 20 percent of the total bill, but there is nothing stopping you from giving more or less. Americans rarely do away with restaurant tipping entirely, but they do take into account the quality of service when determining gratuity. Feel free leave a smaller or bigger tip based on how you felt about the service.
If your mental math isn’t up to much, many restaurants will include a suggested tip amount on the bill. In other words, larger dining parties won’t even need to sweat the tip amount. Whatever the case, you can feel free to leave your tip on the table.
Tipping is so customary in the U.S. because restaurant servers, and other people with jobs that accept tips, often depend on gratuity as the most substantial source of income.
While tipping is a given in sit-down restaurants, you enter gray areas in different types of eateries. The 15 to 20 percent rule is no longer the standard at “fast casual” spots. Some of these restaurants will have a tip jar on the counter, while others might not.
Tipping is up to the diner’s discretion. Going to a bar for drinks is different than sitting down for an entire meal, but tipping bartenders is pretty common practice. If you get a single drink, you can give just a few dollars in tip.
Generally, the tip amount will correlate with how long it takes for the bartender to whip up your libation. If you get a fancy cocktail your tip will be bigger than what you’d leave for a simple beer.
If you rack up a big bar tab, because you are on vacation after all, you can give a few dollars with each order, or you can fall back on the 15 to 20 percent of the total bill rule.
If you decide to hail a cab, your driver will be expecting a tip after getting you to your destination. The standard tip for a taxi driver is 10 percent of the total fare, but this, like most tipping rules, is not set in stone. You, as the customer, can decide to give more or less based on the quality of service.
If you opt to take a ride sharing service like Lyft or Uber, the tipping process will be a little different.
You can decide to tip your Lyft drive with cash or through the Lyft app. The amount you tip can be similar to what you’d give a cab driver. In the case of Uber, your ride is meant to be a “cashless experience.” No tip is expected, but riders are welcome to offer a cash tip.
Most travelers will hop on a shuttle bus to or from the airport. The shuttle ride is often complimentary, whether run by a hotel or airline.
In this case, tipping is entirely optional. If the drive helps you with your bags, a dollar or two is a nice gesture. If the driver simply gets you from point A to point B, do not feel obligated to tip.
When you first arrive at your hotel, a porter or bellhop might be ready to help you carry your bags up to your room. A dollar or two per bag is a good rule of thumb to follow. At the front desk, most likely at a luxury hotel, you might engage the services of the concierge.
Hungry travelers might want to indulge in room service. Don’t worry about any special calculations or rules. Just look at your order total and tip 15 to 20 percent, as you would for a meal at a sit-down restaurant.
Hotel breakfast buffets work a little differently than your typical sit-down dining experience. You’ll be getting up and serving yourself, while the staff generally clears your table. In this case, you can determine your tip based on the level of service.
A few dollars per person helping clear your table is standard, while you can leave 15 to 20 percent of your bill total if you thought the staff went above and beyond.
Hotel cleaning staff will change your bedding and tidy up your room during each day of your stay, unless you specify otherwise. Every day, leave a few dollars on your nightstand. It might seem easier to leave a single tip at the end of your stay, but someone different is probably attending to your room each day.
If you are staying at an Airbnb and wondering should you tip an Airbnb host? Check out that article for all the answers. Here are some of the coolest Airbnbs for you to visit.
If you go for a bus tour, you can offer your guide a tip worth 10 to 20 percent the total cost of the tour. You can also offer the driver gratuity; a dollar or two is considered perfectly acceptable.
The question of tipping becomes a little trickier when you’re dealing with a free service, because there’s no bill to use as reference.
In the case of a free walking tour, you can tip based on the number of people in your party or the length of the tour. $5 per person or $10 per hour is a good tip baseline for these types of tours, but you can always adjust your tip amount based on how knowledgeable your guide is.
The U.S. is known for its beautiful national parks system. Travelers from all over the world explore the diverse geography and wildlife of America through its national parks, which are patrolled by park rangers.
Rangers can offer you advice and tell you about the park, but this is one place you can rest easy about tipping. National park rangers are employees of the federal government, and they legally cannot expect tips.
There are some customary starting points, but tipping is largely an exercise in customer choice. Our guide is a great way to help you acclimate to American tipping culture, but it is by no means the law of the land. Tipping etiquette varies widely across activities and regions.
When in doubt about the amount, don’t be afraid to talk to a local. In fact, asking a local is pretty good advice for travel in general. A local may know some great things to do on your first visit to Prague or anywhere for that matter.
When Should You Tip When Traveling?
There is an extensive list places you could choose to tip when you are traveling. It simply depends on the type of services you engage in when you are at your destination. A good rule of thumb is that anywhere someone performs a good service for you, is a person you can consider tipping.
Of course, there are certain situations and places that tipping is expected—especially in the United States. Here are the different situations and services that you may be expected to pay a tip on your next travel experience.
The first one, and the most obvious, is a restaurant setting. Some restaurants pay their servers less than minimum wage. This means that many workers are often dependent on tips for the large portion of their income.
Traveling is another area where you may be expected to tip. However, it depends on the method of travel. Free travel services are typically up to your discretion. Taxi rides, for example, often require some form of tip at the end of the ride.
Barber shops and salons are one place that people often do not think of when the topic of tipping comes into conversation. Contrary to popular belief, like food servers, a large portion of the income from beauty services come from tips.
These salons also include nail salons. For these locations, you can follow the same rules for tipping percentages in a restaurant setting.
Places that you should expect to tip:
- Restaurants
- Salons
- Travel services
Countries That Don’t Require Tipping
If you hate tipping, there are plenty of places in the world that don’t require it. In the United States, not giving a tip is extremely rude and something that you do not do, ever. However, it’s not this way everywhere in the world.
The first country that doesn’t require tips in China. In fact, people in China typically do not tip at all. However, this doesn’t mean that you cannot tip, or that employees are paid enough money from their companies. If someone has performed a good quality service, you may consider tipping them a few extra dollars.
French Polynesia is another country where tipping is extremely uncommon. Additionally, it’s also not expected. Even if someone performs a great service, they may not accept your money. If someone does depend on tips, they will usually let you know or have a sign outside their business that informs you that tips are welcome.
In Japan, tipping is not only not expected, but it can be seen as rude. If you tip a good service, it is taken that you think not all service are good quality. The only exception to this rule is in the tourism industry. However, if you choose to give your tour guide a tip, it may be a good idea to do it discretely.
In Korea, particularly South Korea, tipping is unexpected. With that being said, anyone is welcome to tip a service in this country. Especially in the areas of hotels and taxi drivers, the workers often appreciate a small amount extra change.
Hong Kong is another country, like Japan, where tipping can be a huge insult. The only place you may see something like tipping is gratuity in the restaurant industry. The gratuity is typically built into your check, so it is a standard percentage, not something that is up to your discretion.
In Switzerland, there is law that prevents businesses from asking for tips. Therefore, if gratuity is expected, it has to be built into the price. However, plenty of people tip services, but it is usually a small one, and more common in big cities.
In Australia, tipping has been uncommon for decades. Recently, however, tipping has started to enter the common scene. Usually, if a person decides they want to tip a service, it doesn’t exceed 10%. Additionally, many people will refuse to accept a tip if it is offered.
In Brazil, tipping is not expected. But like other countries where is it not common, tourists often tip anyway. That being said, it is still not mandatory.
In Denmark, it’s not that tipping is seen as rude or that it is historically uncommon. Waiters and waitresses get paid very well in Denmark! So if you choose to travel here, you don’t need to feel obligated to tip. Unlike in the United States, these employees are not depending on your extra cash to make a living wage.
In New Zealand, tipping is not expected. However, restaurant staff isn’t paid as well as people in countries like Denmark. Therefore, even though you are not obligated to do so, you should consider leaving some money for a great service.
It’s a good idea to brush up on your countries tipping etiquette to make sure you don’t insult or inconvenience workers. Every country has their own cultural customs when it comes to paying people for services, and it’s important to understand that not every country functions like the United States.
To recap, here are the countries that don’t require tipping:
- China
- French Polynesia
- Japan
- Korea
- Hong Kong
- Switzerland
- Australia
- Brazil
- Denmark
- New Zealand
How Can I Get Rich Quick?
The biggest question in navigating several different tipping cultures, is learning how to avoid under or over tipping. We want to tip enough to not insult a great service, but we also don’t want to drain our bank accounts, right?
How to avoid tipping the wrong amount:
- Research tipping customs if traveling outside the United States
- Use your phone calculator, or carry a manual calculator
- Learn state rules about credit card reductions
The first step in avoiding a tipping mistake is learning the context in which you are in. In the United States, there are pretty clear tipping rules for restaurants, salons and taxi services. Outside the United States, its in your best interest to research customary traditions to make sure you are doing what a local would do.
Although it may seem obvious, if you don’t have a calculator on your phone, you should always have a mini calculator if you carry your purse. Some people may be great at mental math, but there’s a bigger chance of you making a mistake in calculating percentages on your bill. You should always err on the side of caution.
You should also be aware on signs that say, “Tips Welcome” or “Tips are appreciated”. Services that have signs like this typically do not require tips, but tips are often a great idea to reward a great service.
Additionally, businesses that have these signs often require cash tips. If you are traveling on the go, have a cash is a good rule to make sure that employees are getting the full percentage of the tip you give them.
Lots of service employees receive tips from satisfied customers, from waiters, waitresses, and bartenders to gardeners, cleaning staff, and movers. In fact, some employees earn more money in tips than in hourly wages.
Some businesses take a service fee out of tips that are run through a debit or credit card. If you are aware that the place you are at does this, you may want to either tip a little extra, or use cash.
Federal courts and the Department of Labor have generally held that employers may subtract a proportionate amount of the processing fee from an employee’s tips, as long as the employee still receives minimum wage.
For example, if the customer pays by credit card and the processing fee is 3%, the employer may pay the employee 97% of the tip left by the customer and keep 3%.
However, some states have more restrictive laws. In California, for instance, employers may not deduct any portion of the credit card processing fee from the employee’s tips.